The present invention relates to a telephone system, a server, and a proxy response telephone operated based on Internet Protocol (IP), and more particularly, to a telephone system with high convenience with respect to an IP telephone environment with high utilization of softphone, the server and the proxy response telephone.
Systems and mechanisms for presenting various types of services have been invented accompanied with the recent rapid distribution of the IP phone. An answer phone system which presents the function for automatically recording the message when the receiver is absent has been introduced as one of the aforementioned systems.
The basic structure and mechanism of a voicemail system will be described referring to FIG. 2 of JP-A-2006-081088 (EP 1635551 A1) as related art. Referring to the drawing, the central control unit serves as a so-called exchange for executing the call control among telephone terminals. When a caller calls a transmission terminal B from a communication network terminal A, the series of operations is performed as follows. (1) The terminal A generates a terminal B call signal to access the exchange or the call control server of the central control unit; (2) The central control unit detects/connects the terminal B to transmit the terminal B call signal; (3) When the terminal B is kept unresponsive to the call signal for a predetermined time, the central control unit confirms the unresponsiveness of the terminal B. Then the central control unit performs the following operations, that is, (4) connects the terminal A to the voicemail server for centrally storing the voice information upon unresponsiveness of the terminal B; and (5) sets the communication route to allow communication between the terminal A and the voice mail server. Subsequently, the following operations are performed, that is, (6) The voice information from the caller of the terminal A is transmitted to the voice mail server so as to be recorded therein; (7) The central control unit reports to the terminal B that the voice information has been recorded; (8) When the receiver confirms the display on the terminal B that the voice information has been recorded in the voicemail server, the terminal B requests the recorded voice information by connecting with the central control unit to call the voicemail server; (9) The voice information addressed to the terminal B is detected; and (10) the voice information is transmitted to the terminal B to be replayed via the central control unit such that the receiver confirms the voice information.
The answer-phone server is regarded as the system taking substantially the same process as the voicemail server described herein for presenting the similar function.
JP-A-2006-050270 discloses the system with further enhanced convenience compared with the voicemail server system using the ordinary voice-mailing process. In the system, the server user registers the detailed settings in the Web server corresponding to the voicemail server as described above such that the message of the caller is recorded before answering the phone when the user is absent.
Meanwhile, JP-A-2003-110742 discloses the voicemail system with improved convenience by recording and storing the voice message (message information) of the caller in the voicemail data storage region in the RAM contained in the IP phone terminal to be managed based on the IP address. The message information from the caller is stored in the phone terminal rather than the server for centrally storing the message information.
The company work style has been transformed accompanied by the advancement of the network system or communication equipment such as the IP phone. For example, the work style called a free address system allows an employee to freely choose a desk for working on a daily basis rather than working on a desk laid out fixedly. The free address system realizes the layout free office style allowing the employees to freely change the work place depending on mood of the day or the project they are involved in. The free address system employs a softphone installed in a personal computer (hereinafter referred to as PC). Any place may become the office which allows the PC to work so long as it is complete with a handset for the PC and the softphone and an environment with good internet access. The use of the softphone, thus, releases the employee from the office environment tied to the landline phone. In the most advanced office using the free address system, the laptop PC and the softphone are delivered to every employee while setting several landline phones supplementary for the respective block of desks.
JP-A-63-245046 discloses that the identification information contained in the call control information is determined, and the incoming pattern is changed in accordance with the determination result.
JP-A-5-095422 discloses a center storage answer phone device to be connected to an analog PBX.
JP-A-11-234410 and JP-A-2004-096194 disclose that plural phone numbers are assigned to a single phone so as to vary the incoming ringtone depending on the assigned phone number.
JP-A-2006-217148 discloses the invention having the schedule of a receiver of the call confirmed in reference to the schedule management section for determining the required operation selected from reception of the call, answer phone processing, and transfer based on the confirmed information.
The operation of an answer phone system in an environment using a softphone will be described referring to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing how the phone system is operated when the softphone user is absent. Referring to FIG. 1, a receiver b as a user of the softphone as the IP phone is absent, and accordingly a terminal B is OFF. In the aforementioned state, the call from a terminal A to the terminal B is performed as follows.
(1) The terminal A transmits a terminal B call signal to a telephony server.
(2) The telephony server tries to obtain the IP address for connection to the terminal B from the table stored therein.
(3) The telephony server, however, fails to obtain the IP address as the terminal B is OFF.
(4) Then the telephony server confirms the callee registered as the destination of the absent transfer for the terminal B.
(5) It sets the call connection to the terminal A, and
(6) further sets the call connection to the answer phone server.
(7) The answer phone server then stores the message information.
In the case where the answer phone system is employed in an office environment with high utilization of the softphone, the absent transfer process using the answer phone server allows the call to the softphone in the OFF state to be transferred to the answer phone server designated as the absent transfer destination. In the office environment as shown by FIG. 2 of JP-A-2006-081088, when the softphone user is expected to be one hour late to work owing to urgent circumstance, he/she may ring the terminal B to leave a message to his/her colleague in the office. If his/her phone accepts a call, proxy response may be made such that the colleague notifies the caller of the message of the employee who will be one hour late to work. Meanwhile in the office where the employees use the softphones, and the answer phone server is installed, the unreceived call will be unconditionally transferred to the answer phone server. As a result, the colleague of the employee is unable to know that the call has been made to him/her.
To cope with the aforementioned problem, the call is transferred to the other phone in the office first when the softphone is OFF. If there is no response to the call for a predetermined period, the caller's message is further transferred to the answer phone server to perform the answer phone process. Such a system may be effective for preventing the missed call in the office. However, the aforementioned system is not the solution to reduce the unnecessary answering or making the proxy response to the call by employing the answer phone server. This system may make the caller wait for a long time during the call.
Alternatively, the system setting may be changed and registered to the telephony server to allow the softphone user to temporarily transfer the message to the answer phone server, or to transfer the message to another phone in the office. However, since such change has to be made manually, the system becomes less flexible, and causes another problem of failure to return the setting.
JP-A-2006-050270 discloses a system which is not intended to be employed in an environment with a high utilization of the softphone, and accordingly, does not assume the case where the telephone to which the phone call is made is not turned ON.
Even if the system for storing answer phone data in the phone terminal as disclosed in JP-A-2003-110742 is employed, the fundamental problem still exists, that is, the message cannot be received unless the power supply for the softphone terminal is turned ON. If the landline phone supplementarily set in the office is designated as the absent transfer destination, and the system as disclosed in JP-A-2003-110742 is applied to the landline phone, the message information may be stored. However, since the softphone does not correspond to the landline phone one-by-one, the messages addressed to the plural phone terminals will be stored in the single landline phone. The system is unable to identify to whom the message has been addressed.
Employment of the proxy response/answer phone function in a large-sized IP phone system may require establishment and installation of a server tailored to the size, resulting in a significant economic hurdle. A simple proxy response function in a unit of the floor or group of the office is thus highly demanded.
The present invention solves the above problems, provides an appropriate proxy response service to the softphone user and the office with the free-address system, and further provides a method for realizing a highly flexible proxy response function and a system thereof in accordance with the user's circumstance.